Nutrition and metabolic studies of methyl esters of dimeric fatty acids in the rat.

Methyl esters of dimeric fatty acids were prepared by fractionating a mixture of conjugated linoleic and oleic acids that was heated for 24 hr at 300 C in the absence of air. Rats fed diets containing less than 1% dimers showed no significant difference (P less than 0.05) in the growth rate, feed efficiency, liver:body weight ratio, and lipid:liver weight ratio from those fed normal diets. A lymph cannulation study using 14C labeled dimers showed that ca. 0.4% of the dimers fed were absorbed within 12 hr and were transported as free acids in the lymph. Within a 28 hr period, 2% of the labeled dimers fed by gastric intubation were oxidized to 14CO2, and 1% radioactivity was recovered from the urine. The metabolism of methyl oleate appeared normal for rats prefed diets containing dimers.